A User-Centered Design Study to Investigate the Design Parameters for Prescription Swimming Goggles

Abstract

A survey-based study was conducted to find representative users with defective vision among students at a technical institute. Using a survey, it was found that 38 out of 95 student-swimmers suffered from various kinds of visual impairments, and face problems that typically are not faced by a healthy swimmer during swimming. A combined study of literature and market analysis suggested that only a very few Prescription Swimming Goggles (PSGs) are available in the market that satisfy visually impaired users. Even with the presence of these specialty goggles, there exist other user needs which have not yet been considered in the existing designs of PSGs. The aim of this paper is to employ a user-centred design (UCD) research for identifying physiological, physical/morphological, and psychological problems faced by potential PSG users, and use the same to compile systematic schemes of design parameters for researchers and manufacturers interested in improvement of PSG designs.